Then those words became messages broadcast to other places.
“I’m writing to you from a far-off country,” Saulitis began, and, one at a time, students added lines that described this place they call home. Some chose words reflecting the beauty of the environment. Some used humor in descriptions of slush, cold, snow.
Then, Saulitis and the students turned their attention to the future. Envisioning themselves 10 years older, they crafted a message based on something from now they wanted to be sure to remember then.
“Remember, remember, I know you can,” Saulitis wrote, setting the pace for their litany of personal memories. What followed were brief one-liners, barely enough to fill a post-it note, but heavy with the weight of truth and importance as students urged their future selves to hold onto this moment, this event, these people, this heartbreak, this joy. And asked for guidance from an older, wiser self.
“Remember to write me back and tell me what to do,” one student wrote.
The workshop with Saulitis was part of Bunnell Street Gallery’s Artist in the Schools program. Kane, who hasn’t taught language arts at the middle school level for 20 years, used it to set the stage for a study of poetry with her classes.
“Poetry is just so sacred and I wanted to do it well,” Kane said.
“Kids this age are really into an intense time of transition,” Saulitis said of the age when one foot is still in childhood and other beginning to touch adulthood. “They are going through a lot and I think there’s a real need to feel safe to express themselves in some way.”
Poetry — with its careful selection of words, writing and reading — can be a vehicle for safe and honest expression.
“I try to remind them that in a poem there’s a speaker that puts distance between you and the one speaking through the poem. You cultivate that idea so it gives you a little extra layer, a mask you can imagine is there,” Saulitis said. “And most poets say that the voice that speaks through their poem isn’t exactly them. It’s the poetic persona. The persona that speaks through poetry is different than the guy that writes it. That adds a little bit of permission to be honest.”
On the final day of the workshop, Saulitis and the students gathered in a circle and she shared with them some of her favorite poems.
“That was one of the most moving things because I felt like they really were bursting out of their skins wanting to express themselves,” she said. “At the end, they all kind of came around and really responded and were questioning. … It was really nice.”
The time with the students also affirmed for Saulitis the importance of art in a school setting.
“What struck me is that we live in a place that has so much darkness. I think they struggle with depression in winter the same as adults,” she said. “The need for self expression is there. … How important it is for kids to have the visual arts, photography, writing. It’s a way for them to talk about things they can’t talk about in other venues.”
Asia Freeman, executive and artistic director of Bunnell Street Gallery, observed part of the workshop and experienced her own journey through time, as she recalled being one of Kane’s students.
“Poetry was something she brought to class when she first started teaching,” Freeman said. “It brought me back to what a great influence she’s been on my life.”
As a final gesture to the students, Saulitis read her gift to them.
“You are a poem,” each line began, as she listed all the ways she had come to know them in five days and ending with, “You are a poem because you change.”
The following day, Kane’s students were preparing their own thank-you for Saulitis: a poem.
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